Your Name Will Be Abraham

Your Name Will Be Abraham
Genesis 17: 1-6

Names are important. My middle name is Edgar, which was my father’s first name. When I was being baptized, family legend says my grandmother leaned over to my mother and asked why it was not also to be my first name. My mother allegedly replied, “Because they will call his father Big Ed and him Little Ed” (which would be fine in the United States but would not work in Britain where “big head” suggests having too big an opinion of yourself). I don’t think my parents realized that John is ultimately a shortened version of Johanan, “Yahweh showed grace,” which is a neat name to be given. If they had realized, they would have been glad, because they had waited a while for the gift of a child. Names can suggest people’s destinies or significance, or say something important about their parents’ prayers for them...